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If you have ever looked at someone who made a destructive choice and wondered, what were they thinking, here is the answer: they probably weren't thinking at all, not in the way you mean. They were surviving. Most people who end up in prison didn't get there because they woke up one day and decided to throw their life away. They got there the way water gets to the ocean: one drop at a time, over terrain that shaped the path long before they had any say in it. That terrain is

1. Most women in prison are dangerous. The vast majority of incarcerated women are inside for nonviolent offenses. Property crime, drug-related offenses, and offenses connected to economic survival make up the bulk of women's convictions. For women who are inside for violent offenses, a significant portion of those involve intimate partner violence situations where the woman was defending herself, acting under coercion, or was so far into survival mode that the context of the

There is a well-worn observation in international development that has been reconfirmed so many times it has almost become cliché: when you invest in women, the returns multiply. Women reinvest resources into families and communities at higher rates than men. They tend to function as hubs, connecting people, stabilizing systems, absorbing and distributing care. This is not a compliment. It is a data point. It applies inside the prison system too. And it matters in ways that d

The Lifers of Coffee Creek launched Con Art — jewelry, crocheted goods, and more — to fund CREW's reentry support for women leaving prison. Every purchase is a tax-deductible donation.

I had been waiting for this day for years. I had imagined it a hundred times…what the air would smell like, whether I would cry, what I would say. But standing there in that moment, all I could think was: What happens now?